How to analize the historical scour of a river/stream? 2

[dachenglee]

Does any body know how to analize the historical scour of a river/stream? What kind of data I need to collect?
Is there a website that I can do research on this topic?

Thanks

 

[LHA]

As far as historical scour data, I do not know that such data exists, but it may.

The best I can suggest is an analysis of the current conditions, then a narrative prediction/conclusion of what scour may have occurred and is likely to occur at that structure.

HEC-RAS has free software at the USACOE website. The HEC-RAS method is universally accepted throughout the USA, to my knowledge.

This software has a scour analyis option, which should be fairly straightforward to anyone with hydraulics educational background; but I would imagine it is almost unusable to someone without hydraulics educational background.

 

[gbam]

One way to estimate the amount of scour(long term degradation)that has occured to date would be to compare all available mapping of the area over the past years. Look at mapping and or aerial photos from the first year the region was mapped and compare it to more recent years. This will give you an idea of the geomorphologic changes over the said time period. This approach will not work for all types of reverine environments. It does apply to ephemeral streams and annual streams. If you are dealing with a perenial stream with no historical data (check with the USGS) then I would tak lha's approch.

Good Luck and have fun with it. It really sounds interesting!

 

[dachenglee]

Thank you very much for your advice,lha and gbam!
It is very helpful.